DC Water: Water is Life

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This case is used in Darden's Economics of elective.It was spring 2009, and George Hawkins had only recently taken the position of CEO and general manager of DC Water. He was trying to turn around the public institution overseeing the failing infrastructure of Washington, DC. He had a conviction that urban living (with a high concentration of people in one location) was one way to build sustainable societies with low energy, water, and carbon footprints. As CEO of a major water and water-treatment company, he wanted to make sustainable societies possible and to help people think about water and wastewater in a more holistic way. By 2017, DC Water would be raking in awards, and Hawkins would be trying to answer some popular questions wherever he spoke, such as How did you manage?, and could the water industry as a whole learn from your experience? It was an open question whether DC Water's success could be replicated, or whether it was specific to DC Water's particular circumstances. Excerpt UVA-GEM-0151 Mar. 26, 2018 DC Water: Water is Life It was the spring of 2009, and George Hawkins had only recently taken the position of CEO and general manager of DC Water. Hawkins drove his Chevy Volt to Constitution Avenue and witnessed a spectacle that he would vividly recount at many public speaking events. A water main had just broken—one of many that year—and water was inundating the National Mall. Hawkins could not help but wonder whether he had made the right decision to try to turn around the public institution overseeing this failing infrastructure. Hawkins had been a somewhat unusual choice for the CEO position. A lawyer by training, he had been active in many nonprofits with an environmental bent. He came to Washington, DC (DC), as director of the Department of Energy and the Environment, in which capacity he had regulated his current employer. What had attracted him to running DC's Water and Sewer Authority (DCWASA) was a conviction that urban living (with a high concentration of people in one location) was one way to build sustainable societies with low energy, water, and carbon footprints. As CEO of a major water and water-treatment company, he wanted to make sustainable societies possible and to help people think about water and wastewater in a more holistic way. As he saw the water fill downtown DC, it was hard for Hawkins to anticipate that by 2017, DC Water would be raking in awards, receiving the 2017 Award for Excellence in Government Finance, the 2016 US Water Prize from the US Water Alliance for its , the 2016 ENR (Engineering News-Record) Project of the Year Award for the Blue Plains Tunnel project, the 2014 Platinum Award by the National Biosolids Partnership for biosolids management, and the 2014 Fuller Award by the American Water Works Association (AWWA), to name just a few. Furthermore, it was not self-evident in 2009 that some of the most popular questions Hawkins would be answering wherever he spoke in 2017 would be “How did you manage?,” and “What could the water industry as a whole learn from your experience?” It was an open question whether DCWater's success could be replicated, or whether it was very specific to DC Water's circumstances. . . .